I appreciate the feedback, but I do want to push back a bit on an idea I see creeping around the edges here at times—that to use effective rhetoric to present the truth is a sin of some sort. Inasmuch as that is your meaning, I respectfully disagree. Guided By the Beauty of Our Weapons is a beautiful essay and one I aim to take to heart. In fact, I think much of the reason this essay has resonated so much with people is because it tells an exhaustively documented, true story about malfeasance that the subject has attempted to hide for a very long time. It is, in short, a fundamentally asymmetric weapon. But to use asymmetric weapons without symmetric ones is to tie one hand behind your back.
To tell the story in an effective way, I needed to write in an entertaining, compelling fashion that told readers why they should care about the decades of niche internet history I was about to throw at them. It wasn’t going to be enough to simply recite a list of facts in bland, understated fashion. The story had to contain the animating heart of what made it mean so much—to Gerard, to the participants here, to onlookers. Now—it’s true, in one sense, that effective rhetoric and effective storytelling are symmetric weapons. People can use rhetoric effectively independent of truth! That does not, however, make effective rhetoric and storytelling bad weapons.
Gerard has an extensive writing history here and elsewhere, and I reviewed thousands of his LessWrong comments, hundreds of thousands of Wiki edits, and a wide range of his posts elsewhere as I worked to piece his story together. Throughout the article, I share sources and peeks at the moments that spoke most to the narrative I saw emerging in his editing and writing history; in the instances where there are gaps, I make that clear as well.
You mention that my writing would not meet local standards. That’s fine for what it is, but from my angle, it feels like what you’re wincing at is precisely the reason people cared enough to understand an obscure feud between a long-time bugbear of this community and his many rivals: because I told the story as a story, not just as an encyclopedia entry.
Your standards are not mine, and to be frank, mine are not yours. I write in the style I do deliberately and with careful consideration. I work exhaustively to ensure every factual claim I make is backed up, I focus the story on important truths while making my own perspective clear, and I supplement all of that with serious consideration for the sort of artistry that makes an hour-long story about Wikipedia edits worth reading. I respect that you feel uncomfortable about my writing but I stand by my approach in full.
Hm, ok. This is good feedback. I appreciate it and will chew on it—hopefully I can make that sort of thing land better moving forward.